Lilah squared her shoulders in an almost imperceptible gesture of strength. “I believe you will do your job diligently and so I must do mine.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
Her smile was wan. “I love my people, sir, and I see my function in life wrapped up in serving them. But I reserve just a little of myself for myself alone. Does that make sense?”
An intensely private man, Will found himself nodding. “Yes.”
“So the woman who is to become your sister-in-law is a lovely person who will make an excellent Emira.” He repeated the words she’d uttered back to Lilah and now she heard the clinical detachment in them, as he must have done.
“I have known Melania a long time. She is a kind person who has long understood that her duties would lead her to marry Kiral.”
“You do not pretend it is a marriage of love?”
Lilah’s expression was stricken and Will leaned even closer. “Off the record.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“For a moment, yes.” He reached down and pressed a button on his Dictaphone so that it made a soft clicking sound.
“Thank you.” She swallowed. “You see why I do not speak freely? I would hate to say the wrong thing and have it be taken out of context.”
“Am I taking your words out of context?”
Lilah’s eyes were trained on the tape recorder. She bit down on her lower lip thoughtfully and then a small smile marked her lips. “There are many types of love,” she said finally. “My brother’s love for his country and his people; Melania’s love of her family and her family’s honour.”
“But love, as is considered normal between husband and wife?”
“Love is not so easily defined, is it?” She ran a hand over her knee, pushing away an imaginary hair. “Love does not need to burn brightly to exist. It can be a gentle flicker; the warmth of respect and admiration. And certainly Kiral and Melania admire one another. She is an excellent woman and she understands him almost as no one else. As the daughter of a King has a unique insight into a man like my brother.”
“Yeah,” he swallowed. “But that’s a pretty insipid sort of love, isn’t it?”
“It’s not for you or me to say.”
“As his sister, you’re not led to speculate?”
“To what end?” She blinked to break the mesmerizing web of confidence that was building around them. “Kiral will never sway from his course. He has agreed to marry her and so they will marry. It was an agreement entered into many years ago, sanctioned by our parents before we lost them. The marriage will be important to my people. It is as good as done.”
Will nodded pointedly towards the tape recorder, reaching down to turn it on. “And so you’ve been sent to New York collecting ceremonial jewels for the occasion?”
Back on safer ground, Lilah’s face transformed completely. The look of relief was marked. “Yes. An assortment of ancient gems has been on loan to MOMA. Some of them date back several hundred years. They’re beautiful.”
A knock on the door sounded and Lilah startled, sitting back as far as she could in the seat and arranging her features into a mask of untouchable disinterest. It was a fascinating ability she possessed, to switch herself off completely, rendering the sparks of her personality completely extinguished.
A servant entered and began to perform one of the many routine security checks that were undertaken. Lilah was used to them. Though her demeanour remained reserved, she nodded at Will to continue.
“I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Delani. You are absolutely worshipped by your people.”
Her smile was a rebuke. “In your culture, you find it easy to bandy about terms such as worship, forgetting that they carry a sacred implication. I am not worshipped, sir. I am no god.”
Will thought shame-facedly of his Pulitzer. He did not deal in hyperbole. The use of the word had been a slip-up, and he didn’t make slip-ups. “Adored then. Popular.”
“Yes, perhaps.” She cupped her hands around her tea, though it was nearly empty. The warmth was encouraging. “When my parents died, Kiral and I were really taken into the hearts of our people. Even more so than before. He was a young prince and I was still a girl. I think it was a very tragic event that inspired a great sense of nationalistic protectionism towards us.”
He lifted his brows at her definition of the affection. “Your brother is respected. He is revered. Even perhaps feared, a little. But you seem to straddle effortlessly the boundaries of celebrity and royalty. You appear at pop concerts and polo matches, on yachts in the Mediterranean and art galleries, and also opening children’s hospitals or speaking on behalf of causes that are important to you. A google search brings up over sixty one million posts.”
“Does it?” Her cheeks flushed with two perfectly round pink spots. “I had no idea.”
And Will believed it. “To what do you credit your popularity?”